Global Drug Use and Production Slowing, U.N. Finds

By WARREN HOGE

Published: June 26, 2007

The once-predicted global epidemic of drug abuse is being brought under control, though opium production is up in Afghanistan, cocaine consumption is rising in Europe and trafficking is growing in Africa, the United Nations reported Monday.

''Recent data show that the runaway train of drug addiction has slowed down,'' said Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

''For almost all drugs -- cocaine, heroin, cannabis and amphetamines -- there are signs of overall stability, whether we speak of production, trafficking or consumption,'' he said, commenting on the agency's annual drug report that was released Monday.

In a telephone interview from the agency's Vienna headquarters, Mr. Costa said, ''The general message of this report is that we have some pretty robust evidence that containment, a word we first used in 2004, is becoming a trend, though we need in the next few years to prove that it is statistically and logically strong.''

''It still could be a fluke,'' he said, ''but we hope to prove that it's now cyclical.''

The report shows that coca cultivation is falling in South America and that cocaine consumption is declining in the United States, but that the reduction is offset by increases in Europe, particularly in Britain, Italy and Spain.

In Spain, the main entry point for cocaine in Europe, the report shows that 3 percent of the population uses cocaine, with particularly high levels recorded among teenagers, where the figure rises to 7.2 percent. By contrast, in the United States, 2.3 percent of the population, and 2.7 percent of teenagers, are users, Mr. Costa said.

He said that the market for amphetamine-type stimulants like Ecstasy was stable and that for the first time in decades, global statistics did not show a growth in the production and use of marijuana, even though it attracts 160 million annual customers and is grown in 172 of the 198 countries and territories participating in the study. The greatest concentrations were found in Afghanistan, Morocco and Pakistan.

According to the new data, global cannabis herb production eased 6 percent in 2005, the last year measured, from the year before. And global production of the amphetamine-style stimulants decreased 2 percent in 2005.

The report shows that amphetamine production continues to be primarily in Europe, notably in the Netherlands and Poland, followed by the Baltic region and Belgium.

Mr. Costa said coordinated drug law enforcement was driving up the volume of drug seizures, with 48 percent of the cocaine and 24 percent of the heroin produced globally now being intercepted. The interdiction figures for the two drugs in 1999 were, respectively, 24 percent and 15 percent.

This success, however, is forcing traffickers of cocaine from Colombia and heroin from Afghanistan to focus on establishing new routes, and smugglers are increasingly turning to Africa, the report said.

''This threat needs to be addressed quickly to stamp out organized crime, money laundering and corruption, and to prevent the spread of drug use that could cause havoc across a continent already plagued by many other tragedies,'' Mr. Costa said.

The pattern of seizures outlined in the report shows that the transport of heroin via Central Asia to Russia is relatively disorganized with many people from countries along the routes involved.

By contrast, the report says, shipments of cocaine from Latin America are dominated by large syndicates based in Mexico and Colombia with little participation by the transit countries of Central America.

According to the report, the greatest spike in figures is occurring in Afghanistan, where the growth in opium cultivation in the country's heavily conflicted south has made Helmand Province alone the world's biggest supplier of heroin.

''The province of Helmand is likely to account for more illicit leaf cultivation than the entire rest of Afghanistan and more than the entire country of Colombia,'' Mr. Costa said.

Ninety-two percent of the world's heroin comes from poppies grown in Afghanistan, and the increase there more than canceled out successes in eliminating other sources of opium in Southeast Asia, where poppy cultivation has fallen 80 percent since 2000, Mr. Costa said.

''Southeast Asia is closing a tragic chapter that has blighted the Golden Triangle for decades,'' Mr. Costa said. ''The region is now almost opium free, yet it is not free of poverty and therefore farmers remain vulnerable to the temptations of illicit income.''

While he conceded that the statistics for Afghanistan were alarming, Mr. Costa asserted that they did not undermine the report's overall conclusion that drug abuse was now being contained.

''The problem in Helmand is the fighting between the coalition forces and the Taliban and the fact that it is a province totally out of control,'' he said. ''In Helmand, we don't have a drug problem, we have an insurgency problem.''

While he had praise for American-led drug control efforts, he said that there remained 25 million drug abusers in the world and that the new gains could be lost if there was not greater awareness of the need to treat addiction as a sickness.

''If we see addicts as people affected by illness, the way we do with cancer or diabetes or tuberculosis, if we bring drug addiction into the mainstream of health care in major countries, then we would make real progress in curbing consumption,'' he said.

Photo: A recovering drug addict lies in a bed in a rehab center in Kabul, Afghanistan. According to a report released yesterday by the United Nations, the growth in opium cultivation in Afghanistan's heavily conflicted south has made Helmand Province alone the world's biggest supplier of heroin. (Photograph by Joao Silva for The New York Times)

Chart: "Drug Control" The global market for almost every kind of drug is stable, according to a United Nations report issued yesterday. (Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) Bar charts show drug production from 1998 to 2005